


I Wanna Live (i'm cold inside)

by FuryBeam136



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'll update the tags if i remember to, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, dont worry about it, ghost linhardt, linhardt is technically dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 11:42:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuryBeam136/pseuds/FuryBeam136
Summary: Linhardt von Hevring died at the young age of ten, when his frail body finally gave up and one of his infamous naps just never ended.Mere days after the frail boy died, Caspar von Bergliez began to claim that he was back.





	I Wanna Live (i'm cold inside)

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to have this posted yesterday oops  
Anyway, I completely blame a group of fools who fed me ideas (you know who you are) for this and I hope they enjoy this strange amalgamation of angst, fluff, and idiocy

Linhardt von Hevring died at the young age of ten, when his frail body finally gave up and one of his infamous naps just never ended.

Mere days after the frail boy died, Caspar von Bergliez began to claim that he was back. That Linhardt was still here, and that he was lonely, and that everyone needed to stop ignoring him.

But the dead are dead, no matter how much Caspar might have pleaded for people to stop ignoring his friend, to say something to him because he was _right there,_ couldn’t they see him? No one would believe him even if he’d only said it once. Even if he’d dropped the subject immediately.

Caspar might be dumb, but he isn’t dumb enough to still believe six years later that everyone is ignoring Linhardt. He enrolls in the Officers Academy and is easily accepted, ignoring Linhardt’s continuous complaints that he’s going to have to come too, and he’s not going to be able to learn anything for himself because no one can see or hear him.

As soon as he enters the room, Linhardt takes his bed. “I’m going to sleep,” is the explanation given, and, true to his word, the young man falls gracelessly into Caspar’s bed and immediately shuts his eyes.

Caspar doesn’t have the heart to kick Linhardt out of the bed just for being a ghost, so he sleeps on the floor that night. It might get him a weird look from his house leader in the morning when she sees him lying in the middle of his dorm, but he throws out an excuse of falling asleep while unpacking and she accepts it without further question.

“That was unusually intelligent of you,” Linhardt says with a yawn, rising from his place in the sheets. “What did you do with the real Caspar?”

“Hey! I let you sleep in the bed! You should be thanking me.”

“All right, all right, be quiet before people start thinking you’re insane. Again.”

Caspar groans. It’s so annoying for him to have to speak to Linhardt quietly- he’s his best friend and he wants to be able to yell and spar with him. But that never would have been an option, unfortunately.

“Cas… come on. I want to see the library.”

“Fine. But after that, I’m going to the training grounds to fight someone!”

Linhardt sighs heavily. “Have fun with that.”

Caspar slips easily into not responding when Linhardt speaks, knowing the ghost doesn’t really want a reply anyway. They enter the library and, to Caspar’s mild surprise, it’s full of students looking at books or checking them out. Linhardt immediately moves to the shelves with a sparkle in his eyes, brushing transparent fingers across the books’ spines with a reverence Caspar is almost certain no book really needs.

“Oh. Oh, this is incredible. They’re all in such good condition. Caspar, you have to check some of these out for me.” Linhardt’s excitement is almost tangible. Caspar will never understand being so excited over a few books, but the way his friend floats between bookshelves with a grin on his usually neutral face is such a rare sight he sees no need to interrupt.

When Caspar leaves the library with a pile of books in his arms, he sees no reason to complain. Linhardt is happy, and that’s all that really matters.

He settles into a training routine quickly, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Linhardt sitting with a book in his lap, fixated on whatever words are printed on the pages. Caspar thinks nothing of it, and clearly Linhardt doesn’t either, until someone else enters the training grounds and screams.

Linhardt freezes, and the book falls to the ground with a loud thud. The person who entered the training grounds appears to be young, though she probably isn’t much younger than Caspar himself is. Her hair is white as snow and her posture is stiff and frightened.

“Are you okay?” Caspar asks cautiously, approaching her.

“What. What was that?” the girl asks in response, pointing to where the book lies still on the ground and Linhardt’s still form sits, though she certainly can’t see him.

“It’s a book? I don’t think I understand what’s got you so upset.”

“It was- it was floating! And then when I saw it it just fell! You heard it fall, right?”

Ah. Caspar really isn’t good at deflecting these kinds of things, and, judging by how still Linhardt is, he’s probably panicking too much to be of any help either.

“Uh… I just assumed it was someone’s weird magic experiment, y’know? Magic is weird.”

“Magic does not make books float like that,” the girl announces very seriously, and, oh, Caspar really should have guessed she was a mage herself based on the lack of muscle.

“Well, I dunno. Why are you asking me anyway?”

“Well. It’s not because I’m afraid of ghosts, that’s for sure! You hear me? I’m not afraid.” The way her body trembles says otherwise, but Caspar chooses to humor her. He has nothing to gain by pushing.

“Alright. Whatcha doing over here anyway? You look more like a bookish type,” he says, to change the subject. It works, evidenced by the huff and the crossed arms.

“Magic needs to be practiced too, you know,” she says sharply. “And besides, I’m just trying to get my bearings right now. I don’t know where everything is yet.”

She turns and leaves before Caspar can say another word. He shrugs and turns back to Linhardt, who is staring after her.

“I… should have been more cautious,” Linhardt says, and then he’s quiet, and Caspar knows better than to bother him.

*~*~*

Linhardt hasn’t told Caspar how lonely he is in years, but there’s definitely something about the incidence in the training grounds that tipped the blue haired boy off.

He can’t be sure what, but it probably has something to do with the way he shut the other off for the rest of the day, choosing instead to just follow vaguely. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Caspar, he just… he couldn’t.

Linhardt is tired, has been tired since even before he died. He can’t remember ever not being tired. He can’t remember a lot of things sometimes, and now seems to be one of those times. His thoughts are hazy, shrouded by an emptiness he never has been able to shake himself of.

It should take longer than it does for rumours of a ghost to spread, but Linhardt admits he’s been somewhat careless. He finds it so difficult to just wait for Caspar to do things, ends up looking for entertainment. He can’t get far from his friend anyway. He has to find something to do to pass the time, and napping has become so much harder since he died. Caspar moves around far too much to let him rest.

He throws a rock around in the training grounds one day, tosses it between his hands a few times as if testing his strength. He tosses it towards Caspar, who shoots him a look before going back to repeatedly punching a straw dummy. The other students in the area pay it little mind, but just enough to start rumors.

When the new professor comes to the academy, Linhardt finds himself face to face with a young girl who floats a few inches off the ground, hovering at the professor’s side. Their eyes meet and they both freeze.

“You can see me?” the girl asks quietly, and Linhardt thinks he might cry, if he is even capable of doing so in this state.

“You can see me,” he says in response, breathless and hopeful.

She moves towards him ever so slightly, and he isn’t sure whether to recoil or approach her in turn.

“Are you like me?” she asks, and Linhardt doesn’t know how to respond. She holds her hand out, and he holds out his.

They touch, and it is a rush of something Linhardt hasn’t felt in years. Warmth and life and kinship.

Caspar finishes greeting the new professor, and the girl follows the strange person away, though her eyes linger on Linhardt.

“Caspar… could you see her? The little girl?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You okay, Lin? You were acting weird when the professor was here.”

“It’s nothing. Forget I asked.”

Linhardt knows perfectly well that neither of them will be forgetting.

*~*~*

It’s only a day later that Caspar wakes to find Linhardt sleeping curled beside him and gripping him like a vice. He gently nudges the sleeping man, and pale hands grip his arms tighter.

“Linhardt? I’m going to be late for class.”

“Can we… stay here…?” Linhardt’s voice has the subtle shaking that Caspar has come to recognize over the years.

“Lin… I gotta go to class.”

“I’m tired…”

“You can sleep when we get there.”

Linhardt keeps his hand around Caspar’s as they walk, and Caspar can’t help the concern he feels at the gesture. Linhardt only ever gets clingy when he’s upset. Caspar wants to tell him it’s okay, he isn’t going anywhere and Linhardt can tell him everything he has to say because even if Caspar did tell someone they wouldn’t believe him and nothing would change and yet everything would change and everyone would think for the thousandth time that something is wrong with him. Caspar has begun to believe that just maybe they’re right, but… he doesn’t want to lose Linhardt. Not again.

Linhardt’s hand on his feels all too real, and Caspar lets himself believe that it is warm and alive for just a moment, a moment too short for anyone but him to take in. He lets himself imagine Linhardt, alive and present to everyone, napping on desks and in fields and smiling that smile he saves just for Caspar after a long day. Linhardt not scaring the girl in the training grounds by simply reading a book. Linhardt being able to study the crests he seems so interested in.

Caspar pushes the thoughts away quickly and enters the classroom. He sits at his desk (and notes the presence of an empty desk beside him that screams that someone else should be here, that there’s one less person in this class than there should be) and he waits for class to really start.

Linhardt takes the desk beside him, expecting no one else to want to sit by the loud blue haired boy. Caspar doesn’t blame him. He’d almost prefer just to have Linhardt sitting here beside him as if he couldn’t just slip through the desk at any moment. As if his body were still working, his heart still beating.

His peace lasts less time than it should when Dorothea comes and takes a seat beside him, as if Linhardt weren’t even there. Linhardt leaves the seat as swiftly as possible, and his long fingers wrap around Caspar’s arm tightly, almost uncomfortably.

The professor walks in, and the grip loosens just a little bit. Caspar decides to pay attention to the lesson rather than the feeling of Linhardt’s hands resting gently on his arms, the way they shift ever so slightly as if he wants to reach for some other part of his body. He finds it incredibly hard to focus when his mind keeps drifting back to how nice it feels to have Linhardt’s hands on his skin.

*~*~*

Linhardt sees her again and again. Each time Byleth is in a room, the girl hovers at their side or over their shoulder or even several feet away doing something unrelated. She rarely says anything to him, usually busy speaking to the professor. But when she does approach him, he feels excited, hopeful. She can see him, and maybe she can teach him more about… everything. About being dead, about being tied to someone who is still alive, about anything to drive back the fog that lies in wait at the edge of his world, waiting to consume him and take him to wherever it is the dead go to rest. He might be tired and he might be dead but he doesn’t want to leave, if he leaves he won’t be able to hold Caspar’s hand or feel Caspar’s fingers running through his hair. If he leaves he won’t be able to keep himself from succumbing to the pain that assaults him, he won’t be able to keep himself from falling apart.

So he reaches out to her and she holds his hand and they melt, they stir and blend into each other just enough to know how it feels to be chained and yet free, to feel the weightlessness of floating and the fog around memories that are so important, too important to forget.

“Are we really dead?” she asks.

“I don’t really know,” Linhardt admits. “I seem to be.”

“Perhaps… perhaps I am too.”

While Byleth teaches Caspar new brawling and axe techniques, Linhardt and the girl with the pointed ears try to teach themselves to do something, anything that might help them protect the still living people they are chained to.

It becomes a weekly arrangement. Or at least, Linhardt thinks it’s weekly. It’s hard for him to tell how much time has passed. Byleth teaches Caspar to fight, Linhardt theorizes while the girl listens. She will occasionally doze off, and those days, Linhardt will usually fall asleep with her.

Caspar asks him one day who he’s talking to, and he tells him, to the best of his ability. “She’s a girl, with pointed ears. She follows Byleth around… she’s like me, Cas. I’m not alone anymore.”

And Caspar screams back with tears in his eyes, tells Linhardt he was never alone because he had him by his side and Caspar was never going to leave him and Linhardt can almost see the way the boy’s heart breaks. He thinks his own heart might have, were it still there.

Caspar runs and Linhardt spends the rest of the day trying to stay close enough to stop the burning pain and far enough to give Caspar space. In the grip of emotions he can’t comprehend, he finds himself hurting anyway.

When night falls, Caspar reaches out his hand and Linhardt takes it, feels its warmth and sighs. He sleeps in Caspar’s arms that night, and when he wakes, it’s the afternoon, and he’s still wrapped in the warmth of his living friend.

Caspar’s fingers comb through his hair and his chest rises and falls with breath Linhardt has given up on imitating. He finds himself wishing those fingers would trail down his back, across his arms, leaving lingering warmth in lines across Linhardt’s mockery of a body. He wants the warmth on every inch of his skin, in every part of him until he feels alive again for just a moment.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Linhardt asks eventually, and when Caspar isn’t surprised by the sound of his voice he assumes his friend knew he was awake.

“We’ve got a few days off leading up to the mock battle,” is Caspar’s reply. “For training probably. But I wanted to let you sleep for once.”

“You’re being awfully quiet… it’s unusual for you. But not unwelcome.”

“If I talk too much I’ll probably say something stupid,” Caspar says with a laugh. Linhardt relishes the feeling of the breath underneath him, the life that still flows in Caspar’s body.

“Well, even if you aren’t talking much, you certainly have a knack for that.”

“Hey!”

Linhardt goes silent himself, knowing that if he continues he’ll probably say something just as stupid as Caspar. He knows he’ll probably say something about how warm Caspar is and how cold he is and how he wants Caspar to touch every inch of his skin until he feels warm all over and air instinctually enters his empty lungs and his heart tries to beat.

Linhardt closes his eyes again and lets himself relax into the fingers drawing pictures on his back and brushing nonexistent tangles out of his hair.

*~*~*

Caspar finds he doesn’t really want to get out of bed today. Linhardt is cold to the touch as always but Caspar finds he doesn’t mind. The peaceful smile on his friend’s face is more than enough to justify sitting through the chill. It’s not entirely uncommon to see, not since Caspar found out how to draw it out of him. But before that, and even sometimes now, Linhardt would never be seen with anything more than the slightest turn of his lips.

Caspar’s hands stop moving when he starts thinking, but Linhardt doesn’t shift or wake. He can’t help feeling afraid even now when those blue eyes close, afraid that they won’t open again to let his friend smile at him.

He lies for a long moment, his hands resuming their movements through Linhardt’s soft hair. Edelgard comes knocking on his door, asking why he’s not training, and he makes an excuse about being tired, which he’s almost certain she doesn’t believe but goes along with anyway.

The rest of the day is spent with Linhardt drifting in and out of sleep, with Caspar swallowing back the thoughts he doesn’t want to speak aloud and Linhardt quietly moving cold fingers along his spine.

They fall asleep together in a tangle of limbs, warm and cold, alive and dead, fingers tied together like the way hands clasp in prayer, a prayer to a goddess neither is fully certain will listen to them. Caspar was never one for prayer, but his eyes close and he begs silently that when he wakes Linhardt will still there, and always will be.

He throws himself into training when he wakes, to banish the memory of Linhardt’s touch and all the things it made him wish for that he’ll never be allowed to have, never be even somewhat capable of having. Linhardt sits with his book in his lap, probably knowing perfectly well all the rumors he’s already started while trying to keep himself entertained when Caspar trains. Caspar tears his eyes away from his friend, throws himself even further into his routine.

“Uh, Caspar? Are you aware of the book floating behind you?”

Caspar turns to face Dorothea, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Yeah, I just didn’t think it was worth messing with, y’know?”

“Suit yourself,” she shrugs. She turns to the space where Linhardt is sitting, though to her it’s just a floating book. “Maybe there’s some truth to that ghost rumor.” Caspar has to stop himself from laughing aloud, though he hears Linhardt’s small huff of a chuckle.

“There might be,” Linhardt says, even knowing the girl can’t hear him, which has Caspar turning right back to the dummy and driving several sharp punches into it because he is not going to think about how Linhardt just made a joke, not going to think about about the small smile on his face and the way those blue eyes lit up ever so slightly with amusement. Caspar is not thinking about any of those things, he is thinking about how to punch this stupid straw dummy in its stupid straw face.

He can see Linhardt’s raised eyebrow in his mind’s eye, and punches harder because he is not thinking about Linhardt right now or how amazing he is and how soft his hair is and- he just isn’t thinking about Linhardt right now. Why would he be? He’s punching things and he’s not thinking about anything.

When he does glance back at Linhardt, the spirit is watching him intently, in a way he rarely watches anything. Caspar finds himself wondering why. Why his training is suddenly so interesting to his friend, who'd rather read a book and has always preferred to fall asleep to the percussive rhythm of fists striking whatever Caspar could get his hands on to train. He wonders, but does not ask. He turns his focus to the living, seeking out a sparring partner. He needs to get his mind off the ghost that follows close behind him.


End file.
